Arrival in San Jose

Day 1
I arrive in San Jose to your typical travel snafu. My first thought on getting out of the airport is that it is pretty hot here. Then I start waiting for Andreas and Laura. The only critical part of our trip is this connection at the airport, since if they don't arrive we have no way to meet up. For the first 45min I just assume that Andreas is on Greek time and thought he could leave the hotel at the same time he was supposed to be at the airport. After an hour I figure something bad has happened. At 1.5 hours I decide to call using a pay phone to call the states. I'm not sure what the charge is, but I finally get through and find out that we never got the car from the rental agency, which is why I never got picked up. I decide to meet them at the hotel so I get in a car with some random Tican (Costa Rican) instead of a real taxi to go to the hotel. The whole way I'm trying to figure out what is the chance this guy is going to try and take me to an abandoned road and mug me. It turns out he takes me to the hotel where Andreas and Laura have been spending the day trying to get us a car.

Apparently there are no rental cars available in Costa Rico. We had made a reservation but apparently the car we were supposed to get was never returned, nor where 3 other cars that were supposed to be returned that day. The guy keeps saying he'll have a car in a few hours. Finally, he tells us we should probably try to call a different company. We finally get a car at 5:30, some 5 hours after we were supposed to.

So we hit the road to Arenul. This is decent ride, we have to avoid people, bikes and dogs on the side of the road who decide to cross whenever they want, and potholes the size of a small boulder, but for international driving it is pretty good. We find the turnoff to our hotel and have to navigate a pretty torn up dirt road, but finally we arrive. The hotel is lovely cabins on a lush ranch. We unload the car and head over to the restaurant for a yummy meal of steak for Andreas and Laura and tilapia. Desert is a delicious coconut flan.